THE LAUGHTER OF GOD - by Walter Clemow Lanyon

 

 

FOREWORD

He will "fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing."

And then one day I heard the Laughter of God in the midst of me and within the world, and all was suddenly changed. Old patterns and ideas were shattered and passed away---a new loveliness of LIFE was exposed to view.

"God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me."

Suddenly the leper broke into laughter---the filth of his mind slipped away---the sick, the lame and the halt suddenly laughed the Laughter of God and were healed ---revealed.

And one day you will laugh the Laughter of God, too.

Written in Germany at Shining Lakes

CONTENTS

The Laughter of God

Rejoice, Thou Barren One

Sound of Abundant Rain

Silver and Gold  

No Enchantment

Then Went He in and Shut the Door

Breaking the Bread

Power

Christmas

The Years That the Locust Hath Eaten

The Lord Said Unto My Lord

Living Waters

The New Day

The Letter and the Spirit

Abundance

The Other Disciple

The Mighty Atom

"For God So Loved the World"

Thou Art the Bright Messenger

Trailing Clouds of Glory

Courage

O Colorful One

Prosperity

Art Thou?

Celestial Mechanics

A Mob of Individuals

False Prophets

 

 

 

 

THE LAUGHTER OF GOD

Chapter One

 

      "God has made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me."

 

     Deep in my soul I hear the Laughter of God, ringing in silvery cadences through the timbers of my being, breaking the human bonds and limitations as a strong yet gentle wind in the forest sweeps aside the strands of cobweb.  The hard, fast knots that I had tied slipped loose, and the snarls of beliefs broke free.  The river of my human life, frozen by a thousand and one false ideas and teachings, broke joyously into expression and went bounding to the infinite sea of Life, to be lost and found at the same time.  One dark cave of fear after another was illuminated by the light of this laughter, and swampy areas of sick thoughts were dried up instantly.  Parched sands of hopelessness and futile efforts were drenched by the living waters, sucked in --- absorbed instantly like a wave breaking on the sands.  God laughing at me, and my puny efforts to make things happen; to make heaven appear; to attain the Sonship.  Not the laugh of derision, but of infinite compassion, a laughter so deep and sweet, so pure and glorious that everything in the nature of struggle gave way before it.

     And the breath of that glorious laughter blew all the dirty rags of personal teaching and self-aggrandizement away from me, and at first the fierce joy that proceeded from the unheard-heard peals of laughter made me afraid --- afraid that everything worth while was being taken from me, and that I should be naked; but  no sooner had the filthy rags of personality blown free than I was clothed in a panoply of light, and in this glorious raiment of light I saw for the first time the glory of the Spirit made flesh.

     I stood before the infinite peals of laughter, which flowed through all creation like floods of golden mist, filled with speechless wonder at the beauty of the world I had lived in --- which had been invisible because of my separation, because of my personal ideas about attainment.  I was as a child with a small measure at the seaside, trying to carry off a little water when the whole sea was at my disposal, and I understood for the first time the exhaustless sea of substance about me, and that the idea of hoarding was but a childish fear grown into a Goliath by false teaching and beliefs.  I suddenly became aware that the substance was everywhere, in everything, out of everything, and the only place of lack was in the hypnotic state of belief --- and I alone created and moved in this vacuum.

      And the glorious laughter rolled on, searching the very joints and marrow of me --- dislodging every belief in fear, sickness, or age.  And as it swept over me and through me and round about me, I was amazed with the wonder of it --- the fierce, terrible thing which was at the same time so beautiful and free.  The wonder of it kept singing through my soul as veil after veil of belief was rent asunder and new kingdoms stood revealed.  And the whole thing was as if one just saw a little deeper, as one looks through the surface reflection on a river and sees the pebbles and shells below, that was all; only the Laughter made this possible, for it cleared away all the effort and straining which in its attempt to see God had been halted at the reflection on the surface, instead of gazing into the limpid, glorious depth of Infinity.

     The Voice, as its honeyed tones flowed out like a burst of sunshine through storm-clouds, was so unlabored, so untrammeled, and so Divinely indifferent, it seemed to envelop me with an instant realization that all was well.  No matter how many struggles had been made, no matter how many mistakes, how many shortcomings, how many failures, how long the belief, or how short the hate, it was all swept aside as nothing.  The glorious Divine ease with which it was expressed made disease impossible. It was the overturning an overturning that had to take place before He, the Laughing One, could come into expression.  The people of God are a people of joy, and it is not until they hear this God Laughter in their souls that they have attained to their heritage. 

     What of this race that speaks of the Kingdom and doing the Father's work, and uses all the language of the Truth, and at the same time sows seeds of fear and hellish inventions?  What is this race that is always seeking evil to destroy, like a weasel seeks out a rat?  What is the hopelessness they preach --- that on one hand, you are the Sons of God, and on the other, that you must fight against evil of every sort and nature?  "Ah, yes, but, if, and maybe --- they roll these stumbling-blocks under their tongues with a wise twinkle in their eyes, as much as to say, Yes, it is all true, but it comes only with hard labor and long study, and it is not for such as you, sinner and worm of the dust that you are, until you have purified yourself in the fount of my wisdom and paid me personal homage."

     And it is then that the Magdalene hears the Laughter of God and is clean and free; and in an instant too; and it is when the cripple hears the Laughter of God that he leaps to his feet and runs away praising the Living God.  And it is when you, no matter where you are, or what you are, no matter what you have done or left undone, hear the Laughter of the God within and the God without, that you will crash through the gates of hell and find heaven, no matter what these gates may be --- person, place, or thing.

     One moment's recognition that you are the Son of the Living God, and you have attuned your ear for the Laughter of God which will put to flight all the stupid ideas of mine and thine, and free you into an expression that you have not yet dreamed of.  How can you restrain the joy that fills you when you hear this laughter which, when it is heard, causes the winter of your discontent to break into full fruition, which causes you to see literally that "before they call I will answer," is not a bit of euphonious language, but a positive living, glowing fact.

     "I was afraid," and therefore you were driven out of the Garden of Life.  You have been afraid that God will punish you -- - that it is too good to be true --- that you are not ready --- that it comes by great learning; and so you are still without the portals of your own kingdom, trying every way but the only way to re-enter.  Many there be who try the way of violence, and many who expect to ride in on the skirts of another.  There are some so foolish as to invite this.

     Why do you not stop trying to get things, trying to learn how to get power, place?  Why do you not come away from the man whose breath is in his nostrils? --- You who read this page, and go within and hear the Laughter of God, and know that "it does not matter" --- that the things which gave you great concern are all swept away into the dump heap?  The sooner you learn this the sooner you will see they have no value.  And one time, when you take away their value, they are possible of attainment to you.  You profess to be a follower of the Master.  If you in any way believe this, you will begin to listen for the Laughter of God through your whole being, and will know that the Laughter of God sets you free from the snarling discontent of the Tower of Babel in which you have been living.

     Presently, as you listen for this Laughter, you will hear it, and gradually you will begin laughing --- billows of laughter, silently-audible laughter that will shatter one limitation after another; laughter filled with the Divine Indifference which knows that the Universe if filled with God and only God, and to recognize this will cause this laughter to flow into expression and shatter the belief in sin, sickness, and death.  And when this belief is shattered in you, the pictures of this on your universe are dissipated and are no more, and even the place thereof is no more.  You will know why there can be naught but laughter in the Kingdom of Heaven.  What good of words or arguments?  What in human sense is a lecture worth on the subject of Laughter, as compared to one glorious sudden peal of joy released by a God soul and picked up by all those in hearing distance?

     And gradually, as you learn of the Laughter of God and join in with the Glory of the Sons of the Living God, then you will laugh at yourself.  You will perhaps go back and laugh all the mistakes and faults and limitations out of existence.  You will stand with your glorious feet on the mountain-tops of Self- Revelation, laughing at your universe and with your universe, and laughing in words: "It is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful."

     "Let the filthy be filthy still."  Some may read into the Laughter of God a belief in carelessness and indifference, and some consecrated souls may rail and tear their hair and say that it is encouraging license and making nothing of sin, in order that one may indulge in sin, and so on; and for them this message is not.

     He that hath ears shall hear what the Scripture saith unto the Churches, and only he that hath a single eye is through with trying to twist meanings to suit personal ends.  But he that hath the consciousness of the Son of the Living God shall not find it strange that "he that is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity" should laugh at the belief in it that has bound men for so long; and this Divine disregard does not in any way encourage license, but gives liberty to the Sons of God.  It breaks up the dank morasses of human belief and reveals itself as heaven, a state of consciousness, which finds not happiness at the disposal of sin, health at the disposal of sickness, and harmony at the disposal of inharmony; but finds these pairs of opposites swept away.  It finds man the individual Son of the Living God, experiencing power and wisdom such as could not be put in human language.

      The impress of the Divine upon the human causes the human to express in what to the unenlightened thought may seem to be a supernatural way.  The how and why and when are all vested in the limited human concept of life.

     When are you going to start laughing the Laughter of God?  When are you going to join in the glorious chorus which is already encircling the globe, and which has for its password "It is wonderful"?  You cannot stop this laughter once it is started; you will shatter the belief in disease in thousands as you go along your way --- not by a poor, half-hearted way of beseeching God, but with the ringing Laughter of God in your Soul which knows no sickness, sin, or disease, and hence cannot look upon it.  And in this very knowledge it will impress the consciousness with the Eternal well-being of the Son of the Living God.  The man, if he hear the Laughter --- that is, if he be willing to hear it, instead of accepting the pinched human concepts of his human reasonings --- shall break the bounds of his limitations; crash through the gates of brass; shake off the shackles of beliefs; burst through the prison bars of his own making, and find himself free, free, free, and find his soul ringing with laughter and with the song, "It is wonderful."

     Whoever you are who reads this page --- you who sit in prison houses of disease, sin and unhappiness --- listen, listen, listen.  I AM the door of attainment.  He will "fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing."  I AM the door to this glorious Laughter of God --- I AM the way to the eternal bliss and harmony of the Sons of the Living God.  No matter where this finds you; nothing is hopeless or helpless; this joyous Laughter of the recognition of God, here and now, of the Finished Kingdom --- of the sudden discovery that Jesus was not a liar, but a truth-sayer, a concrete truth-sayer, when He said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand --- it is within you" --- will cause this Kingdom to descend out of the clouds of your belief and be real.

     How can you help laughing silently and audibly the Laughter of God, and see its ringing notes shatter the silly arguments about life?  "The wisdom of man is foolish in the eyes of God."  Why try to measure the inspiration of the Almighty against any man-made teaching!  "I will make you fishers of men."  I, the I AM, when once discovered will make the one who discovers it a Fisher of Men.  Who can resist the Laughter of God --- the fearless Laughter of God ringing through the universe, sweeping all the debris of human belief out of the way? --- no matter if it be thousands of years old, and hoary with the respect of mankind.  Not one stone shall remain in place.  The very foundations of the human belief shall be shaken in order that the True Cornerstone, which has been rejected up to now, shall be laid.  Yes, the Stone --- the very Stone that the Master gave to us --- the philosopher's Stone if you will, which we have rejected, because to accept it would have been to have overthrown great temples of human reasoning --- will finally be made the Head Stone of the Temple of Truth.  You are the Temple of the Living God, and from out the inner recesses of your being proceeds the Laughter of God.  "The Sons of God shout for joy."  You will shout for joy, not because of victory over evil, but because you have at last realized that the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place of overcoming evil, but of revelation which is above the belief of a divided universe.  Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light.

     And I heard the Laughter of God in the Soul of my very being --- ringing in glorious cadence throughout my universe, causing me suddenly to burst into a glorious laughter which was full of praise, full of wonder --- full of wonder and amazement at that which I had missed through looking through a glass darkly.  "Arise, shine, for thy light has come" --- do you hear?  "It is wonderful!  It is wonderful!  It is wonderful!"  Heaven and earth are full of Thee --- sin, sickness, and death have vanished away. I hear the Laughter of God ringing in the deep recesses of your soul, you who read this page.  I see the moving finger writing across all the worries and fears of a lifetime "It does not matter," and I see this laughter writing the things of beauty over the walls of your temple and casting a glorious glistening white robe --- a seamless robe of attainment --- over you.  And at last I hear you laughing from the mountain-peak as you go on your way, without thought of scrip or purse or robe or ring or upper chamber, and long before you have reached your destination the Laughter of God in your soul has gone ahead and made ready the upper chamber, and the Host has come out to receive you. Do you hear? You who read this page? You?     Under the aegis of Jesus Christ you can "go" with the Laughter of God in your heart.

 

 

 

 

REJOICE, THOU BARREN ONE

Chapter Two

 

     "FOR IT IS WRITTEN, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband" (Gal 4:27).

     Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for the Lord Omnipotent reigneth.

     When we begin to see that the great Universal God overshadowing the Universe causes it to bring forth in due season, we begin to understand why it is stated, as quoted above, that "the barren and desolate shall have many children."  We begin to see that, when we contact the Father within, the old order of trying to make things appear from the outside is done away with.  The old order passeth away --- "Behold, I make all things new, saith the Lord of Hosts."

     Thousands of people have tried in every way to bring forth the manifestation of Spirit; to make demonstrations; yea, even to help others in the name of the Lord; and have found themselves and their lives barren as the desert, while others about them seemed to bring forth many children; and they have wondered, and finally fallen under the belief that the manifestation of spirit was not for them, but only for a special few; or that they were not fit avenues, or not yet ready to express the Christ Truth --- hence they bore no children.

     But the old order changeth.  The light is breaking over the dense human consciousness.  Man is awakening to know that contact with the Father within is the propagating influence which will bring forth many more children than "she that hath a husband."   He is beginning to understand that the creative force of the Universe is even at this instant at work within the secret place of his being, and that just as soon as he is ready to "let" (through the process of recognition), "the word will become flesh and dwell among them," and he shall say, "Let the child be born," and the barrenness of a thousand life-times in the flesh shall be swallowed up in the glorious expression of the flowering desert.  "It shall blossom as a rose."  The well-watered garden shall take the place of the barren waste.

     Martha had many cares in preparing to receive the physical Jesus.  Symbolically speaking, the most she got for her work was perhaps a "Thank you," while Mary feasted upon the hidden manna of Spirit.  The human sense would like to condone poor, long-suffering Martha.  A thousand reasons why she acted as she did are offered, but the rather uncompromising fact stands that she was rebuked, and that the blessing was given to Mary.  All this symbology does not mean that the Mary consciousness might not do just as much work with her hands as the Martha, but from a different standpoint.

     When we are on the outside of being, trying to bring forth, we are finally rebuked for our barrenness, even though we have put into expression the best that seemed to be in us.  Likewise the state that dreams of perfection, and dwells in a mental state of rightness and perfection, is also rebuked for vain imaginings.  The Word must become flesh.  "In my flesh shall I see God."  One extreme is as bad as another.  The Word must become flesh, and the flesh must become spiritualized or resurrected, until the two become one.  We then have Jesus the Christ --- instead of Jesus the son of the carpenter and Christ the Son of God dwelling in one body.  The two become one, and the sayings of the Scriptures are made true.  It is then that "death is swallowed up in victory," because death could only come to the one of a divided consciousness.  What is told in secret shall be called from the housetop.  Thus we see that the Christ of God decided to submit to what is known as the crucifixion in order that the world might see the transcending power of spirit over matter, and to know that the law, "I have power to pick it up and lay it down," was true and provable.  To stay on the heights of this law was to escape the seeming ugly reality.  Do you imagine that the Christ who was able to open the eyes of the blind, restore lost substance to the body of Lazarus, and do a thousand other things directly in opposition to the best accepted laws of the physical world of that day and this could not have averted the Crucifixion?  If so, then read Matt. 26:53:

 

"Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?"

 

Where is the Father, and how do we pray?  You see, then, that the Christ decreed this to come to pass.  When He descended to the human Jesus state of consciousness, then He asked that the "cup pass from me."  We understand that what He had accepted or decreed in secret should come to pass.  So is it true with you.  You will begin to see that all the unborn children shall be released when the body and soul become one.  To pray then will be to speak forth only that which is about to appear.  Prayer will not be the old idea of wondering whether God wants to do a certain thing; it will be merely an exquisite feeling of gratitude, which says, "Thank you, Father," because it knows that the answer exists before the question.  Do you begin to see why it is that the one who was barren of manifestation will suddenly become fruitful?  The limiting laws of the human concept of creation shall be dropped off, and the recognition of the Father of all shall cause thy barrenness to be a forgotten state.  "The former things shall pass away --- they shall not be remembered nor come into mind any more."  Thus the barrenness shall be swallowed up in the abundance.

     From the human standpoint we even admit that we have teachers of Truth or music who cannot demonstrate for themselves, but can give readily to others.  From the Divine elevation this is an utter impossibility.  This state of barrenness which brings forth no manifestation shall be fertilized with the overshadowing influence of the Ever Presence, and what it has so long conceived on the invisible shall come into manifestation.  No more shall the world be filled with barren ones who talk but who do not show forth the works, for they shall have united the body and soul and resurrected the risen Christ, which hath a body and which lives in the world, but is not of the world insofar as coming under the hateful laws of the human mind.  Death is swallowed up in victory, and with it all the things that go to bring about or make death possible.

     "Call no man your father," for "every man is a liar, and the father of it."  We see what lies have been told about us in the name of family, nationality, etc.  We are burdened with hateful lies of every sort, because we have recognized a human parenthood.  We have assigned to ourselves all the limitations of human-kind, and therefore we are full of troubles, and so are our days.  "Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light."

     Do you begin so see, O barren one, that your name shall be changed, and that you shall be as a land flowing with milk and honey?  For the spirit of the Infinite Spirit broods over all, and has broken the hateful bondage and set the prisoners free.  Then is thy house gladsome with the laughter and joy of many children --- your glorious ideas that have so long remained in the silence of your mind come forth with joy and thanksgiving.

     "This is life eternal, to know ME."  Where is this ME, and what will you do with this life eternal?  Do you expect to carry on this limited personality for eternity?  Do you expect to be John Smith for eternity?  Only when Jesus the son of the carpenter became Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, did He ascend above the limiting influences of beliefs that belonged to His family, nationality and time.  When He became Jesus the Christ, and "the Word became flesh," He transcended ont only nationality, but time and space, and was able to set aside any law of the belief-world, just as the intense sunshine sets aside the dark shadows of night.

     All disease and all barrenness out-pictured on your body and affairs are merely the shadows of beliefs cast upon the screen of your life.  When the light has come, the shadows disappear.  It is no good to throw a picture on a cinema screen if that screen is illuminated.  So the shadows of the belief-world, that have been formerly true to the human mind, fail absolutely to record when you have come to the place of letting "the light within so shine before men."  We do not heal the Christ, nor yet prosper Him, nor yet change Him.  We merely recognize Him, and as we do so we bring out that which has been eternally.  Thus healing is swallowed up in victory.  Were anything real to be healed, it would be utterly impossible to accomplish it.  The Christ of God needs no assistance, no help, no healing.  But until the John Smith realizes this Christ within himself, and permits it to come into manifestation, he will merely be working on a plane of imagination.  Nothing concrete nor definite can take place.  So many of us have stood about and seen the demonstrations; yea, we have even partaken of the bread, the fish, and the wine; but we have forgotten to partake of the spirit, so when we had consumed the manifestation we rushed back for more and found ourselves far from the source of substance.  So many people are so engrossed in listening to words that they only bask in the light of another's understanding, and hence miss the glorious possibility of the command, "Go thou and do likewise."  Many are asking for life free which is promised, while still holding a miser's consciousness within themselves.  Do you not know, until you can give yourself to the Universe it cannot give the ever-flowing substance to you, for the simple reason that there is no capacity to receive it?  The mind which is still hoarding cannot have the infinite rivers of abundance poured into it, else it would be destroyed; but the consciousness that has given itself to the Infinite is an open way through which the torrents and floods of substance can flow.  It thereafter does not have to seek --- it receives before it asks, for a infinite stream of substance is constantly pouring through into expression.

     "It is written" --- so full of meaning is this statement, nothing shall retract or rub out a single word until it be fulfilled.  "Not one jot or title shall be removed until the law shall be fulfilled."  It is written that "the barren shall be more fruitful than she that hath a husband."  The law that is so full of promise, and so glorious to all those who have wondered and grieved and tried to bring forth the works of the Master.  "Go thou and do likewise" is a pretty big command, but there it is.  What are you going to do about it?  Talk it over with some wise one who will go into gushing phrases and words, and whose barren life is filled with mute testimony of failure?  Be still; be very still.  Finally you will hear the command, "Go within and shut the door," and you will let the glorious revelation take place within your